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jamstar7 writes "From an Associated Press report: 'China will launch three astronauts this month to dock with an orbiting experimental module, and the crew might include its first female space traveler, a government news agency said Saturday. A rocket carrying the Shenzhou 9 spacecraft was moved to a launch pad in China's desert northwest on Saturday for the mid-June flight, the Xinhua News Agency said, citing an space program spokesman. The three-member crew will dock with and live in the Tiangong 1 orbital module launched last year, Xinhua said. The government has not said how long the mission will last.' China, who is not an ISS partner, plans to see if its Shenzhou 9/Long March 2F system can get the job done like the Dragon/Falcon9 system can. They plan on two missions this year to dock with their Tiangong 1 module, which was launched in September 2011. Their eventual plans include building a complete space station by 2020, though one of only about 60 tons, compared to the ISS's 450-ish tons."

You do realise this exact same shit was said about Japan years ago. All they do is copy... not innovate...

China is copying to catch up. Once they catch up they will go shooting past - and all the MBAs, financial instruments and lawyers that the US has wanked away its educational estasblishments and brainpower on producing won't be worth a piss in a wind storm.

Japan had twice the per capita GDP over America... twenty years ago. While substantial, they are dealing with some very tough problems.

One of the largest problems Japan has been facing is that they have a huge population of senior citizens compared to the number of children that have been born. It has forced Japan to deal with very different issues than many Islamic countries are facing which have a large youth population. These issues are also going to be facing America relatively soon, particularly whe

Yet there is far less poverty in Japan (and Germany). The US might have a high per capita GDP but that's just an average, the spread is very unevenly balanced. It also doesn't account for the fact that both Japan and Germany have universal healthcare.

Japan is an economic joke! Their economy has been in recession or barely growing since the early nineties. They've basically stagnated for the last 20 years. Their government is so in debt (230% of GDP) that they make Greece (165%) and Spain (69%) look fiscally responsible! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_public_debt)

It's worth keeping in mind that if Japan had the same quality of fairly ruthless leadership that it had in the 50s through to the 70s, it probably would have rebounded quickly. The severe recession of 1990-1991 was a good time to weed out the failures and allot the weaker performing keiretsu among the remainder (likely in the process encouraging new players to enter the ranks). That didn't happen and is in large part why things haven't improved very much for a long time.

That's taking a little naive look at it. Japan's debt is domestic dept, and their can print their own money. So their debt problem is not the same as Greece (who is on hock to foreigners, and can't print their own money), Spain, Italy and Ireland.

Ironicly, Ireland is one of the countries Americans create shell corporations in to hide their assets. Go figure. Raise the tax rate in Ireland and the that solves one of America's problems automatically.

You should read the Myth of Japan's Failure [nytimes.com] --- a great piece on perception vs. reality of Japan's economy. Hopefully, this will clear your misconceptions and not have you spewing forth silly rubbish.

Slashdot, where geeks who do not know or understand economics talk about it, and sound like idiots doing so.

Decent enough article although a lot of hyperbole and ignores a lot of inconvenient facts.

Firstly to say that the lost decade (or twenty) years has been a creation of western psychology is silly. There's a lot of pessimism in Japan among Japanese about the last twenty years and with generally good reason. The system of lifetime employment has collapsed and a new social underclass of non-permanent workers has been created. The number of families relying on government assistance has massively increased and th

You do realise this exact same shit was said about Japan years ago. All they do is copy... not innovate...

China is copying to catch up. Once they catch up they will go shooting past - and all the MBAs, financial instruments and lawyers that the US has wanked away its educational estasblishments and brainpower on producing won't be worth a piss in a wind storm.

I can't find a link to any web based version but there was an interesting story on NPR about two months ago

I support NPR, with my money and my time in volunteering

But I do understand that NPR is not perfect

NPR is not that much different from many other Western media - that their report on other part of the world routinely tinted with the Western bias

I am not from China but I do have businesses in China - and in my many trips to China, I have to say that the average Chinese are way more innovative than the average American

While it is true that if we compare the top American researchers the Chinese have nothing to

Does anyone have a clue why they want to do it by them selves?I applaud the DIY mentality there, but it doesn't seem to be the easiest / cheapest thing to do. And on this level "because they can" is just seems ludicrous.Anyone?

Actually, just with the west. They are working hard to take over the rest of the world via economic means, and when it fails, then they are using their military (right now, it is constrained to Asia, but that will change).

They're in a cold war with every major power on Earth. It's an economic and technological war rather than a shooting war, but the principal is the same - you beat on your chest and shout "We are mighty!" to inspire your own people and make your opponents nervous. China has been an also-ran in the world for a long time, significant only because of the sheer size of their population. Their development and economic growth has been phenomenal over the last several decades, but they started out so far behind

And how did the Apollo program help the US win the Cold War? Why did Americans care so much about winning the space race? After all, it had no real military or economical advantages.

Honestly though there's no point in continuing this conversation. Your question shows you have no concept of nationalism either person or theoretical. Which is in some ways rather sad regarding the state of whatever country you live in.

Another way to say rocket that will take you to the moon is ICBM. Every time you launch a spacecraft you're showing that you can put something big and heavy (like cold war era nukes) into space and drop them anywhere on the planet.

Why not? We did, and our economy sucks harder than theirs. Some things we've done are a combined effort, but in the beginning it wasn't just by ourselves, but a race. It may as well have been Space Olympics.

But I do agree, everyone coming together would get more done. Maybe we'd actually learn to play nice, as well.

I strongly disagree. Competition is more effective. Sure you need cooperating groups to do big projects like this. But having just one such group doesn't usually work. There's not much incentive to try harder, because there's little benefit to doing so. In a competitive environment, trying a little harder than your opponents might net you considerable gains over them. And you can always compare your progress to that of your opponents.

Competition is good for some things, but not all. For instance, there are ideas which can't be done by just one group/country due to massive amounts of $$$ needed, amongst other things. An expedition to Mars would need a collaborative effort, going by what it'd take to get there.

I think it's a little sad to think that a figurative dick-waving is what you have to do in order to get anything done, the idea that "haha, we're better than you!" urging us on instead of, "OMG, if we'd all stfu and combine resource

An expedition to Mars would need a collaborative effort, going by what it'd take to get there.

Based on what? Fantasy estimates from NASA? My take is that with a cheap, heavy lift launcher (such as Falcon Heavy [wikipedia.org] which is claimed to be able to put 50 metric tons into LEO), we could do an indefinite series of manned missions to Mars (say one to two manned missions to Mars every two years) on what the US pays for the ISS, roughly $2 billion a year. That's a bit too ambitious for private groups (who could do a scaled-down version of this), but easily affordable by a number of government.

I think it's a little sad to think that a figurative dick-waving is what you have to do in order to get anything done, the idea that "haha, we're better than you!" urging us on instead of, "OMG, if we'd all stfu and combine resources, we could be on Mars by such-n-such a year!"

I don't really care, if "peen" is what it takes to go to Mars. Seems good enough a reason for me.

50 tons isn't nearly enough. The Saturn V had a 119 ton capacity to LEO, and managed to land a tiny lander on the Moon. Mars requires a much heavier capsule, heavier lander, and much larger delta-V, even for a one way trip with short stay on Mars.

As we saw with the International Space Station, one can assemble a larger structure in space than one can launch from Earth. NASA put up a 450 ton structure with launches from a vehicle that could handle less payload than the Falcon Heavy can lift.

One of the claimed features of the Falcon Heavy is that it is vastly cheaper than anything that has ever flown, something like $2500 per kg to LEO in 2010 or so dollars (for max payload of 53 metric tons). Even if we completely ignore inflation, that's a factor

While it is possible to assemble large structures in earth orbit, it is much less complicated to assemble the stuff on earth, and launch it with a super heavy lifter.

You have the complication and the cost of the super heavy lifter ("SHL") which is required only for that project and has little other use. You also put an additional constraint on the vehicle (namely, that it has to fit inside the SHL and be subject to mass and volume constraints). It's only much less complicated once you ignore the design and cost burden that you just put on your vehicle.

It is interesting that you are talking about a Saturn V competitor from SpaceX, as Elon Musk is working on an engine design called the Merlin 2, which is claimed to have a similar thrust rating as the F1 engine built for the Saturn V 1st stage. The idea behind the engine is to build something where the Falcon 9 only needs a single engine, yet these engines could be clustered for a much larger rocket.

The problem that SpaceX is facing for building such a vehicle is that Elon Musk (in an interview that I've l

I don't really care, if "peen" is what it takes to go to Mars. Seems good enough a reason for me.

It isn't. A dick-waving contest was enough to go to the Moon. When was the last time anyone went there? Where are the moonbases and space habitats?

The problem with dick-waving contests is that the goals tend to be symbolic gestures with little actual value. No, putting a man on the Moon wasn't a "giant step for mankind". It was a PR stunt. Perhaps if the moonflights would had been sustained... but they weren't,

No we don't. There's no way we can launch enough shielding to be effective, and a magnetic field of effective size also requires more mass and power than we can launch.

If that were true, then you'd have a point. It's not. I didn't claim we'd reduce radiation exposure to zero. Just that we have ways to reduce radiation exposure so that it's not a serious health issue on the flight.

Both Russia and Japan (ISS partners) were very cold to the idea as well. It wasn't just the "North American country" that was the problem. About the only ISS partner that didn't have a problem with China joining was Brazil... a real power-house among the ISS partners.

Another problem China faced is that they wanted to put up their own modules and wanted to do the docking on their own. A very real concern is that China, with their vast experience at in-orbit rendezvous and orbital construction being brough

Yup, the head of the House Appropriations CJS subcommittee in charge of NASA, Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va) actually attached a clause to NASA's funding bill last year that explicitly prohibits any NASA collaboration with China [sciencemag.org].

Of course, ITAR restrictions would have prohibited most of the collaboration even without this new clause.

If you try to do it with the US, it would never happen. Just ask the Europeans [sciencenews.org]. It's not like they're on great relations with the Russians, the only other country that can put humans into space.

So you're left with the Iranians, North Koreans and a couple of crazy amateur [copenhagen...bitals.com] in Denmark.

China wanted to participate the ISS in 1990s, but China had no money and no technology at that time, and China could learn too much knowledge from participating the ISS at that time, so China was denied participating the ISS project.

Because they believe it to be a strategic long-term interest of theirs, and don't want to rely on other countries - which are neutral at best and potentially hostile at worst - to provide the technology that they can withdraw support for later?

China has a DIY mentality in many areas lately. In the military, for example, they are steadily converting everything to their own designs and standards (which are often based on old Soviet tech, but developed further... a smart idea) - planes, tanks, even small arms

It's because the US Congress objects to the Chinese space program having access to the ISS. China has for years applied for access to the ISS, and the US has blocked it every time. That on the surface sounds pretty elitist and bigoted, but their reason is that the Chinese space program is still very much controlled through the PLA, and therefore not a civilian research organization like NASA, ESA, JAXA. I'm not sure why it would matter, though, since a civilian organization run by the government would still

"If I get a $40 meal, but only pay $10 of it, am I not mooching from the person who pays the rest?"

Depends a bit, I think. As it stands, one could consider each gets a discount even tho one ends up out $30. If the person paying $10 is also helping you get a job done...

Nice point about pork. Some of it, maybe, goes deeper. I recall some of the discussion at the time, and a few involved were looking further ahead - be it participation, collaboration in future endeavours, for instance. (Btw, I did spend s

Does ISS have any value at all? (At first blush, I could make an argument for answering no, not really. But I consider that the day is yet young.

I consider the ISS to have three things of relative value. First, it is a demonstration of orbital assembly. Second, it is a fair test platform for technology development. Third, it's great for microgravity research. I sorted these into declining value as I see them.

Unfortunately, most of its value has been exhausted with its completion and being one of the best (and likely, one of the most expensive) platforms for microgravity research this century just isn't that interesting compared to the cost.

And they canned the "Centrifuge Accommodations Module" which was supposed to let us test biological reactions to "gravity" greater than microgravity but less than earth gravity as would be important for a long term moon or mars misson.

Well, the problem is that the microgravity counted on the life centrifuge. When W/neo-cons canceled that, they killed one of the best uses of the ISS. That single piece would enable us to figure out how we will do on the moon and on trips to mars and elsewhere. It was stupid of that admin that they killed that.

Microgravity is microgravity, apparent accelerations no more than a few thousandths of what we experience on Earth. It's worth noting that the ESA piece has smaller centrifuges (which might help explain why they tossed that part). There's a lot less capability there, but some such research can still be done.

It's also worth noting that many countries can launch unmanned and manned satellites for conducting low gravity research. But nobody is doing that. The neo-cons can't be responsible for why the curren

To be fair, there is the Dragon Lab that is going to be conducting microgravity experiments being done by both European and American companies and a few governments.

The problem is that at the moment (besides a few companies who are getting into the experiment aggregator business and offering much smaller prices for small experiments) any research laboratory who wants to conduct this kind of research must pay for the whole launch and build things to fit into the time scales and process of traditional orbital

So, I guess it's safe to say you think the Chinese doing this, on their own dime, is a good idea, then?

Absolutely.

Did NASA even have the hardware & cash to fly that many flights any more?

NASA has always had enough money to launch the ISS. Now should be easier than ever due to such companies as SpaceX and Bigelow. Frankly, I think they could replace the ISS and its valid functionality for a few billion.

Keep in mind that while Americans are launched into space from Florida, most of the manned spaceflight program is run through the Johnson Space Center [nasa.gov] in Houston, Texas [dallascowb...eaders.com].

So I'd imagine that it's an occupational hazard. If you're a woman and you get your hair done in Texas, it's gonna be big.

What I find most interesting is the difference between the Chinese Space Program and organizations such as the ESA, NASA, and POCKOCMOC (Russia) is the amount of secrecy. Whenever any of the other space agencies makes a manned launch, you normally hear about it years before the actual mission flies, and the crew assignment is normally announced shortly after the mission is. With China, you hear about it almost days before launch day!

I consider this a symptom of a serious, but by no means unique problem with the Chinese space program. Namely, that the leaders responsible for the program are extremely risk adverse. Various governments manifest this problem in various ways. The US government, for example, does a great deal of soul-searching and blame-finding when things go wrong.

Here, China, much as the Soviets did, attempts to hide failure. They don't mind killing people, but they do mind greatly any negative publicity.

In fact, their space stations is never to have citizens in it. It will ONLY have military personnel in it. Basically, their space station is our MOL, but they see a reason to build it, while we never built it.

Less because I think china will do anything meaningful in space exploration at least for a long time to come. But Americans in particular take space more seriously when they think they're competing for it. So this could mean a serious reprioritization of resources in favor of space exploration by the US.

Again, I think it's great the chinese are interested and I wish them the best. I think it's great that more countries are getting involved. I just think in the short term the best news here is that it's likely to get more established countries more involved as well.

AFAIK, one of the drivers behind the man on the moon mission was because Russia was busy with the same thing, so this may actually restart the NASA funding.

However, I'm concerned because every nation "up there" has been amusing itself with saturating the place with satellites for various purposes (not in the least military), and now another club is joining - one that now holds all the cash.

It's getting uncomfortably crowded up there, and if something gets out of orbit a hard hat won't exactly be enough. Th

Hard to believe human beings would think it logical to duplicate an engineering feat such as a space station due to nationalism. You'd think the average educational norm could be slightly higher than the nationalistic primal urges, but no.

Mankind is not a rational animal.

He is a rationalizing animal.

Besides, there is a whole lot of useful engineering in being able to launch something into space. Materials science, engines, controls - hey, there even could be a military use.

Hard to believe human beings would think it logical to duplicate an engineering feat such as a space station due to nationalism.

I think the problem here is that you use "belief" instead of "reason". The space station was pretty cheap and the nationalism benefits fairly concrete, a morale boost for more than a billion people. The logic isn't perfect, but it's a good deal more solid than you believe.

It also made sense to keep China out. There were valid concerns that they wouldn't contribute, but just suck knowledge and technology for their own uses. Mind you, that describes most of the participants to some degree.

One of the goals for building the ISS was also to transfer knowledge (at a price) from Russia to the USA over how they were able to build MIR and to get access to the engineering history of MIR and the Almaz and Salyut programs. While in theory Skylab could have had two crews docked at the same time, such a task was never actually performed, nor were any "resupply" flights like Russia did with the Salyut program and subsequently done with MIR and the ISS. That whole process started with the Shuttle-MIR mi

So to prevent that, they've taken action to ensure that China, feeling scorned, will go off on its own path. They will develop/steal the same technology anyway through other means, all on their own and independently....then in the end there will be the same outcome, except now the Chinese have good reason to dislike and mistrust us.

Needless to say, I consider that a better outcome. And no, the Chinese don't have "good reason" to mistrust us. They might have good reason to dislike us, but I think they're pragmatic enough to realize that there's a limit to stupidity even in the developed world.

The well-known journalistic suffix of "-ish" is used when quoting figures from Wikipedia, where you cannot be sure of veracity, or using woefully vague units like "ton". Wikipedia gives the mass as "approximately 450,000 kg (990,000 lb)" [wikipedia.org], which is 450 tonnes (a non-SI unit acceptable in SI) or 495 short tons, the unit most commonly called "ton" in the US, 446 long tons, the unit used for the displacement of ships and in the UK. NASA, on the other hand, give the much less massive figure of "861,804 lb (390,908 kilograms)" [nasa.gov] or 391 tonnes, 431 short tons, or 395 long tons. Both sources approximate conversion from kg to lb, so there are four different figures to choose from even if you ignore the vagueness of "ton." Pick your poison.